Do I recall correctly that the color of the user id's in this thread indicates if it was posted here directly, or got moved here after being posted someplace that's else?

Henry

I see the flow of refugees continues...

Yes, if the name is in red, that means someone bounced it here from PT.

And yes, it is Reuland. He's zapping people left and right and leaving Larry untouched. Amazing.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

<quote>I would have thought that moving a whole bunch of comments to the Bathroom Wall would have made it obvious not to feed the troll, but some of you are amazingly thick-headed. One stupid comment does not ruin a thread. One stupid comment combined with 8 people who just canâ€™t help but respond ruins a thread. Please, quit ruining my threads.</quote>

Why are you punishing the people who <b>respond</b> to the trolls but not banishing/disemvowelling the trolls themselves? Delete/bounce Larry, the problem goes away. Do it this way, the problem lasts forever.

<quote>I would have thought that moving a whole bunch of comments to the Bathroom Wall would have made it obvious not to feed the troll, but some of you are amazingly thick-headed. One stupid comment does not ruin a thread. One stupid comment combined with 8 people who just can't help but respond ruins a thread. Please, quit ruining my threads.</quote>

Why are you punishing the people who <b>respond</b> to the trolls but not banishing/disemvowelling the trolls themselves? Delete/bounce Larry, the problem goes away. Do it this way, the problem lasts forever.

Now this is interesting. Like 2 minutes after I posted that at PT, it appears here, but at the moment it's still in the PT thread -- but NOT in the list of 'recent comments'. Is it one of those deals where only I can read my posting?

Now I know how all those people who try and post at UD feel.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

It turns out that Steve is applying the same rules that go for this BB:

Quote

# MetaRule 1) DO NOT respond to inappropriate messages with a message.# MetaRule 2) DO NOT enter inappropriate messages.

Myself, I'd bounce all the inappropriate messages, but that's up to each thread owner.

Also, PT is done via Movable Type. MT generates static pages, so things have to be "rebuilt". This can lead to some odd behavior on the leading edge of current stuff.

There's also a rule saying that sockpuppeting will get you banned, but that rule is ignored.

I see Nick Matzke is also bouncing people here as well. Quite the craze there this week.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Okay, the other shoe dropped, my post is now totally gone from Steve's thread, but there's a new long post by AD taking Steve to task for how he's handling it. Be interesting to see if Steve makes that posting disappear too.

I'm never posting anything on one his threads again, for one thing.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I had some good, on topic posts and they are neither here nor there. But, Arden, make it a game. See what you can get away with! THese musings on the subject are not limited to practicing research scientists. (Maybe you are one). They are reactions and thoughts on the subjects at hand as well as the global subject of the fundementalist attack on the "educated intelligent class of people". So if you want to get back at him, tease him, don't go away mad. Try to stay nominally on topic but look through the historical postings. If you took OT posts out many threads would have no posts at all. It is a broad topic and peevish behavior is to be expected from anyone from time to time.

Too many thoughts! Sorry that was so rambling but I hope you got my point.

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

There seem to be some conflicting ideas of what the comments on PT posts are there for. Most contributors think that the comments are for others to reflect upon the post and put in some substantive commentary, adding to what is there or bringing up serious considerations and critique of the content of the post.

On the other hand, we have a lot of non-contributors who seem to think of the PT comment capability just as a rather slow IRC chat room. This is certainly the case for the trolls. It would be unfortunate if many others are lured into troll-like behavior.

I had some good, on topic posts and they are neither here nor there. But, Arden, make it a game. See what you can get away with! THese musings on the subject are not limited to practicing research scientists. (Maybe you are one). They are reactions and thoughts on the subjects at hand as well as the global subject of the fundementalist attack on the "educated intelligent class of people". So if you want to get back at him, tease him, don't go away mad. Try to stay nominally on topic but look through the historical postings. If you took OT posts out many threads would have no posts at all. It is a broad topic and peevish behavior is to be expected from anyone from time to time.

Too many thoughts! Sorry that was so rambling but I hope you got my point.

I think I do get your point, but I'm not sure it's worth it. Check out SR's closing paragraph on the last message of the thread:

Quote

It wouldn’t surprise me if there are one or two reasonable comments in the torret of posts that invariably follows one of his random, inane anti-“Darwinist” rants, but I can’t be arsed to pick them out. The whole lot goes. If anyone wants to lodge a complaint about censorship, they can find someone who cares.

'They can find someone who cares.' Jesus, if I wanted to deal with someone like that, I'd argue with DaveSpringer at UD. Leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth. Screw it.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

There seem to be some conflicting ideas of what the comments on PT posts are there for. Most contributors think that the comments are for others to reflect upon the post and put in some substantive commentary, adding to what is there or bringing up serious considerations and critique of the content of the post.

There aren't a lot of posts that don't meet this criteria. You can't blame people for what they think is substance. Since it's OK to be Off-Topic here on the Bathroom Wall, I am going to ask you a question: what is the point of this blog? Is it an educational forum with serious entries or is there a sort of lighthearted side to it? I can think of a lot of posts that are just plain funny and have very little if any redeeming science or legal value. There is a lot of nuance to the global subject and the gray area is exceptionally hard to define. (Ask Raging Bee who makes very odd remarks here but publishes a pretty good blog of her own).

If people can't use laser-like accuracy in their comments it may be for several reasons, time constraints, knowledge level, elloquence at the moment etc. but they -we - really are discussing the topics, albeit sometimes in a roundabout way. This global subject has different meanings for different people and That's why we post comments.

I personally have a strange fascination with fundies ever since a bunch of them broke some equipment I was using. Weirdest thing but when confronted their lack of neurons was utterly astounding. They were doing gods work.

For whatever reason people comment they are contributing to the debate. You could always try to go to a slashdot kind of system but your impartiality is a pretty stark contrast to uncommon descent and people can see that. It is always better to be on the side of intellectual honesty and that is a major theme of this blog. Or am I missing the point entirely?

Would you prefer that I don't share my thoughts and opinions on PT? How about Arden? Lenny? k.e.? Or do we contribute in some way?

How about you Steve Reuland? What would you like to see?

I am not in a snit. I seriously wonder. I might have missed the mark when I first found this blog. It wouldn't be the first time. But I do have a serious interest in the topics and I am a little irrepressable so I post comments.

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

Let's be clear. A "post" on PT is the thing at the top, put there by one of the PT contributors or added as a guest entry. All the rest are "comments".

And I would have to disagree on the proportion of comments that meet the criteria I stated. I'm thinking that it is rather more like what is stated for the "Bathroom Wall": you go through a lot of oyster guts to get to the pearls.

Myself, I don't really expect to find that the comments have become a beautiful string of pearls. However, I would like to do what I can to encourage a somewhat higher rate of pearl production than what I see now.

I think I've established my track record or reputation concerning discussion. This BB has been going for several years now; it predates PT by a good while. To be allowed to post pretty freely here merely requires non-sociopathic behavior. That's beyond a very few people, and I do what I can to minimize their impact on the system. Long before the Internet was the social force it is today, I was operating a dial-up BBS. I set up the Fidonet Evolution and NeuralNet echoes (an echo is analogous to a Usenet newsgroup) and moderated those for several years. My approach has been to let people speak pretty freely, but challenge them to improve. If you think that your contributions, or Lenny's, or Arden's, or anybody else's are perfect already and I shouldn't be urging improvement, then we've come to an irreconcilable difference of opinion. Which just means that I will continue to press for improvement.

So, what about the "friends" post? And Andy/////whoever?I'm just wondering what you think. You mentioned "troll like behavior" and I wonder what you think of their value. Are they the guy at the beginning of the tax hearing or is the tax hearing a bad analogy?

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

Well, I have nothing really unique to say anyway, but the use of BW by a few of the folk I agree with at PT to make us look pure and selfless - this time my comment really was a simple and controlled expression of my extreme disgust for someone everyone finds disgusting - while giving the real trolls full access to the same #### thread has broken my trust.

Many of the pro-science side, like myself, have justified anger and disgust, and how we express it is our own business -- if not making threats or derailing threads -- and the threadmasters who act like pastors instead of editors can #### well piss off when they abuse their position.

I'll leave the boards to others and work with the issue in ways that matter, and right now the PT discussions do not matter much: this is the trench warfare phase of the struggle when no lurker is going to change their mind no matter how many propaganda flyers are scattered about, or how many well-crafted, sincere, angry, cheerful, honest posts anyone makes.

PT (and Talk Origins and several others! has a real function, and I laud the people doing the real work of detailing the science and exposing the lies and intrigues of the completely cynical Creationist/ Fundamentalist movement, but why involve myself in what is now a stupid shouting match? Why argue or persuade people as shitty and stupid as LarryF, or Thordaddy, or as insincerely sincere as that Advo guy? It's your time, folks, and do what you think right, or enjoy, but I've finally had enough, with also being casually pissed on by someone with the views I support as well.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I bounced myself. I do that fairly regularly, even when it's not simply a test of software changes. If I chime in on something that ends up being a digression, I have no qualms about moving my bits over here along with the rest of the digression.

1. The person known as "Andy H" and various other pseudonyms has effectively been banned. He apparently uses multiple IP addresses which makes it very hard to ban him outright. Reed and Wesley, who run the technical aspects of the blog (all props to them) are doing what they can, but they work their tails off to make this blog what it is, and problems like this just come with the territory. I am NOT trying to give anyone a hard time while ignoring the root of the problem. The root of the problem is being dealt with, but it ain't an easy problem to deal with (and out of my hands anyway).

2. When I moved "Andy H's" comment and all of those that responded to him, I purposely did not try to differentiate those that were legit from those that weren't. The obvious reason for that is that I don't want to pass judgment on those responses that were okay vs. those that were not. That puts me in a position that I don't want to be in. All of them were off-topic, and I figured it would be best if I treated them all the same way. If I let some of them stand and others not stand, then I'd be yelled at for selective moderation. (Of course got yelled at anyway, but like I say, it comes with the territory... )

3. I screwed up when I used the "junk" function to try to move comments here. I thought that would move comments to the BW, but instead it put them into another category of "unpublished" comments. They are not deleted. But I also don't know how to get them back or put them here. This is my fault, and not what I intended. If it really matters to anyone, I'll try to do what I can to get them here. (Unfortunately, that means leaning on Wesley to fix the problem, since I don't know how to do it.)

4. I really don't take kindly to the suggestion that moderation equals censorship. That is nonsense. We have a fairly liberal policy concerning comments, and have banned very few people, but that never means that one can post whatever one pleases. I consider comments to be a valuable tool for generating feedback, critique, and to add additional information. If I didn't see things this way, I wouldn't even open them in the first place (every poster can just keep them closed if he or she pleases). That being said, it really defeats the purpose of having comments when a lot of people use them to lob insults at each other, regardless of who started it.

5. And my final comment is not really related to my current bouncing of messages, but I'd like to make a plea to those of us who are pro-evolution and anti-ID not to make comments that have no other purpose other than to insult IDists (please don't call them IDiots), so-called "fundies", or worst of all, religion in general. I honestly don't see the point in any of that. Our goal is to explain to the population at large what's wrong with ID/creationist claims and arguments. If you don't like religion, I hate to break it to you, but several of our contributors (including Wesley) are religious. And yet we all manage to get along because we find common ground in science and reason. If you want to make jabs at people who have conservative, fundamentalist beliefs, well guess what? You're preaching to the choir. You are saying nothing profound or original by pointing out that there is something wrong with the way some of these people think. Who, precisely, do you think such attacks manage to influence? Not me -- I'm already on board. Not them, they just use such attacks to reinforce their inaccurate view that all of us are a bunch of as pinko atheist humanistic anti-religious whatever the #### it is we're suppsed to be. How about those people sitting on the fence? You'll influence them, one hopes, with lucid explanations about what's wrong with creationism, not with crude attacks on religion or political points of view with which they may have sympathy. Just saying is all.

But, Arden, make it a game. See what you can get away with! ...So if you want to get back at him, tease him, don't go away mad. Try to stay nominally on topic but look through the historical postings. If you took OT posts out many threads would have no posts at all. It is a broad topic and peevish behavior is to be expected from anyone from time to time.

Um, no, this is exactly what you should not be doing. Trying to test me is not cool. It is what is called trolling, and if you keep it up, it will get you banned. Not because I don't love you (I do! ) but because it is against the rules. And it is very much counter-productive to what we are trying to do.

So, what about the "friends" post? And Andy/////whoever?I'm just wondering what you think. You mentioned "troll like behavior" and I wonder what you think of their value. Are they the guy at the beginning of the tax hearing or is the tax hearing a bad analogy?

I don't get the allusion to a "friends" post.

Andy/Larry/whoever uses a lot of different IPs to evade IP banning. If PT went to a completely closed registration, or moderated all posts, we could keep Andy and other despicable computer cracker types out. Other than that, it's going to be up to posters to moderate their threads. Some people have the time to do that, others don't and may simply turn off comments. In the latest case that we're discussing, there was confusion over how to move comments here to the Bathroom Wall, and some comments got tagged as "junk" instead.

Someone made a comment about things being equally hard to move a comment to the Bathroom Wall as to unpublish or delete. Actually, up to today, it was more difficult to move a comment to the Bathroom Wall than to do either of the other things, because the only means of doing so involved treating each comment individually.

I've just tried out my new MT plugin that provides another action for moving that can act on multiple selected comments at once, and it seems to be working. So hopefully PT contributors will have a little easier time of keeping discussions on-track now.

Tell you what Dave, why don't you intelligently design a time machine and go live between the years 1954 and 1967?That way, you'll actually have a chance of being almost right about something for once...

...Nah, not really. I'm messing with you, you'd still be wrong; don't send that memo to the ID R&D department just yet. After all, I'm sure they're quite busy.

Berlinski was mocking you people. It wasnâ€™t that subtle but it still appears to have zipped right over the tops of your pointy little heads.

This is off topic but I thought all the youngsters here should know that â€śdegrees Kelvinâ€ť was the proper expression from 1954 until 1967 when the International Bureau of Weights and Measures decreed degrees be dropped. This is sort of like the U.N. decreeing that French is the international language of diplomacy. Some decrees are accepted to a greater â€śdegreeâ€ť than others. LOL

<quote author="Dave Scot">Berlinski was mocking you people. It wasnâ€™t that subtle but it still appears to have zipped right over the tops of your pointy little heads.

This is off topic but I thought all the youngsters here should know that â€śdegrees Kelvinâ€ť was the proper expression from 1954 until 1967 when the International Bureau of Weights and Measures decreed degrees be dropped. This is sort of like the U.N. decreeing that French is the international language of diplomacy. Some decrees are accepted to a greater â€śdegreeâ€ť than others. LOL